Tips on climbing Mt. Elbert

1. Don't.

On Saturday, we climbed our third Fourteener (the second was Mt. Bierstadt -- maybe I'll throw in our summit picture at the end here). Mt. Elbert, at 14,440 feet, is the tallest mountain in Colorado. It's even the tallest mountain in the Rockies. Hell, it would be the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states were it not for Mt. Whitney (just 65 feet taller, that bitch).

Because the trailhead is at a lower elevation than the other two peaks we've climbed, the overall ascent was higher -- and let me tell you, we felt every bit of it, as we were wearing our crappy $30 hiking shoes that we bought a year ago for our trip to Peru. While we were up there, the wind was strong enough to shake our balance, and it even snowed a couple of times (it was the consistency of Dippin' Dots, which kind of hurts when flung into your face at 40 mph.)

But it was a pretty hike. Since we hit it up late in the season there weren't many people out there, and the ones who were there were all very polite and quiet mountaineer types, unlike the hordes of tools that clog the trails in July and August. We even had the summit to ourselves!

The ascent took around 5 hours, and the descent took nearly that due to the steepness of the mountain, the crappiness of our shoes, and Chris' knee refusing to cooperate.


We were thinking of cramming in one more 14er this season, but after the smacking that we got from Elbert, we think we'll just wait until spring comes around again on the guitar.

Oh, we're so cheerful at 7am. We've been up since 3:30 (hence the puffy eyes) and only got lost once on the way. And yes, in the background there, you can see an aspen turning gold. My, but it's a nice state I live in.

This little guy sat down next to us while we were resting at the treeline (about 12,000 feet). He's actually a good 10 inches tall, and was into sitting on the branch just beside me.

The summit at last. We got our picture taken by the only other people up there, who promptly descended and left it all to us.

This is actually me at the top of Mt. Bierstadt, which we climbed in July. I know they all look the same to you people, but they're unique like snowflakes to Chris and I. Giant, 4,400 meter tall snowflakes made of rock and despair.